Idealist. Dreamer. Singer. Explorer.

Chillin’ at home, decorating the tree, and singing on TV!

Like I said in my last post, Miloš and I got home around 2am from Chicago and promptly crashed. Followed by some hard core sleeping in. 🙂

We had plans that day to meet with my friend Megan and her husband for an early dinner. She and I decided on the Olive Garden, as we felt both of our picky-eater men would be able to find something they liked there. 😉

For those of you who read my blog regularly or followed some of my past Disney trips, Megan was one of my friends who I went to Disney with two years ago. She is a fellow Disney fan! We got to hear about their Disney cruise and being out at sea while Hurricane Sandy worked her destruction all around. They did not have the greatest time.

I wish we had snapped some pics together to share, but we were busy eating and chatting. Before Megan had her son, we used to get together about once a month, and our dinner get-togethers were literal marathons. It wouldn’t have been unusual for us to sit at our table for five hours gabbing away. But they had their adorable little baby with them, so it wasn’t a super long meal. But I was glad to have Miloš meet one of my best friends, as she had heard all about him for quite some time.

When we got home, my mom had put up the tree – all ready for us to decorate it! Miloš said that he never really helped much with decorating the Christmas tree at home, so he got to learn some tips from a Christmas tree pro. (Um… at least I like to think of myself that way!) 😉

I snapped some pics of our progress…..

Decorating the tree…

Decorating the tree…

Fun with ornaments! 😉

This is one of my faves. 🙂

Not only did I teach him about good ornament spacing (very important – can’t have your ornaments touching!), but also how to hide the ugly yet sentimental ornaments on the back of the tree so my mom didn’t see that I put some of them up there. *sneaky laughter* It was a really nice night!

After we finished with the tree, the rest of the evening was low key and spent in. 🙂

**********

The next morning, we were up super bright and early – Olde Towne Carolers was performing live on WFMZ Channel 69 as the Music Monday guests. We had to be there by 7:45am. (And since you know we are not morning people, you can imagine how difficult it was for us.) Although, unlike me needing lots of time to do my make-up and make myself look pretty for performing on television, Miloš was able to get up five minutes before we had to go and he was ready.

This was my second time performing with Olde Towne Carolers on the Music Monday segment, and before that, I had been a guest with my accompanist Terry Musselman, when we performed some show tunes on air earlier in 2011. It was great fun to be back on the program again!

Olde Towne Carolers, after performing on WFMZ Channel 69.

After we were done at the studio, we went out to breakfast with two of my other best friends – Liz and Matt Francisco! They’ve been singing with me since I started Olde Towne Carolers, and have been amazing friends through all kinds of crappity crap. Unfortunately, all fourof us are not morning people, and we were more like a table of zombies than anything. But I was still really glad that the four of us could get together. 🙂

After that, I think we just went home and chilled for a little. I was going to be leaving that afternoon for a gig that I really wanted to do from the moment we booked it. See, we had “gotten in” at Longwood Gardens last year because we were hired by an event planner to sing for New Year’s Eve there. They liked us so much that this year we were contacted directly by Longwood Gardens themselves, and hired for two separate dates. This particular Monday night was one of those dates.

I had warned Miloš in advance that he’d be getting to spend a lovely evening with my parents. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they get along more than fine, but I can’t imagine spending an evening alone with your girlfriend’s parents is at the top of the to-do list. But they apparently had a grand ol’ time. Daddy cooked dinner and they watched some movies. (Mommy remembers Miloš very well from the cruise ship a year and a half ago when we all first met. In contrast – when i told Daddy about Miloš after I came back from Europe earlier this year, he had no idea who he was. Haha! Go figure!)

One of the reasons I wanted to put myself on this gig was because of our times singing at Longwood back in college with the West Chester University Chamber Choir. I was really involved with the Renaissance Chamber Choir for a few years back in the day. (I even have my own Renaissance costume – it’s the red one I wore in the pics for my album “Echoes of Christmas Past.”) We performed there a few times while I was singing with the group. That was my first opportunity to see Longwood Gardens and its amazing beauty. It’s such a magnificent place to visit! We had several sets and performed in a few different places. Here are some pics from that night:

Those specific shots were taken between sets and at the end of the night.

Here we are getting ready to perform in one of our locations:

Olde Towne Carolers at Longwood Gardens

I got home rather late, as the gig was long and over an hour away. But the gig itself was a huge success! The clientele there really seem to appreciate what we do – we sort of feel like mini-rockstars!

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One of my favorite quotes is, "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough." I guess I've been a dreamer all my life - I set my sights high and then I try to reach the sky. Some might call me a naive idealist, but that's just the way I am. I believe in always taking the high road, I believe in true love, and I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated. If you put good out into the world, good will come back to you!
Being the dreamer that I am, I pursued singing as my primary life's calling - I've got two degrees in classical voice under my belt, and I sing just about anything under the sun.
I also love a good adventure. Over the past few years, I've done quite a bit of world traveling, and have even lived abroad for stretches at a time: mostly in Vienna (Austria) and Croatia.
A few years ago, I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and I became a travel agent who specializes in Disney vacations. (Seriously, I KNOW Disney - I've been going regularly since I was a little girl - and I LOVE it!) And with all my experience traveling and living in Europe, I'm becoming quite the specialist in that travel category as well. (And last year, I started working as a Tour Director in Central Europe!)
As to the other juicy details of my life - I'm originally from Pennsylvania, I'm married to an awesome Croatian man named Miloš who is the BEST adventure partner a girl could ask for. (He's also an expert on knowing how to make me smile.) He's truly the love of my life!
I've also had all kinds of other jobs along the way, besides singer and travel pro. (Which is pretty standard for those of us who went to school for music.) I've worked part time weekends as a Disney Princess look-alike for children's parties. I've been teaching for almost 20 years, and have lots of experience in retail and customer service. Oh, and I should also probably mention that I'm a huge Lord of the Rings/Star Trek nerd! :-)
Let's all go along for an adventure, shall we?

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JenSop: The Singing Traveler!

Jennifer is a a passionate traveler, a professional soprano and a life-long Disney fan! She not only has had an extensive career in opera, operetta, oratorio, musical theatre, early music, and jazz; but is also a travel agent who specializes in Disney and a Tour Director in Central Europe. Turns out careers in music and travel are more alike than meets the eye!